Roleplaying as a weak, helpless girl.

[SkyAddiction]

7 minutes ago, karlpaws said:

There have been many pixels lit (since we don't spill ink any more) on this, the "why doesn't the Dragonborn go all Ulfric-at-Markarth on the city walls or do anything else that makes logical, tactical and strategic sense? (CC's Do You Know Who I Am? mod helps in some places but he can't do it all).

I use TiE as well, for all it can do, but Unbound being able to toggle dragons on word walls, randomly spawning or not at all helps in the "I'm not Dragonborn, why do you people keep saying things about the dragons returning, Helgen was wiped out by a meteor." sense. It also lets you get the Golden Claw for Lucan, or not, and ignore the dragonstone entirely.

To the topic at hand though, Unbound or LAL or stock game start, you can create the backstory you want (FudgeMuppet's Youtube channel has a bunch builds with backstory but they always wind up at Helgen on the cart, caught crossing the border... boring) but if you want to be the rogue Thalmor agent highly skilled in magic or the Redguard veteran heading home from eastern Cyrodil you can be that powerful hero.  On the other hand you could be a refugee of several kinds, a desperate criminal on the run or an aspiring mage/thief/warrior/priest heading into Skyrim on pilgrimage/quest/whatever.  J'zargo could have been on the cart instead of you, (or one of a couple other low level guild members I can't think of right now... he mentions traveling though.)

 

Continuity and coherence are clearly more important to you, which is of course fine. It just doesn't really matter to me since my PC can't even approach High Hrothgar until she's cleared most of the really easy locations in about three holds anyway. The bears/trolls/whatever along the path would just murder her even with a follower. Basically, she might be the dragonborn, but it doesn't matter because even after clearing the Western Watchtower, she can still barely hold her own against a few simple bandits without help. The tight economy, all-skills-at-1 game start, and level-by-training requirement to really develop skills to useful degrees all make it so the major story lines are functionally inaccessible for the first 20 levels or so.

 

The way I have things set up right now, it takes about 20k-30k septims to get my PC to rough equivalency with a vanilla starting PC, and the skill distribution is much more logical since I obviously train the ones most useful to my character. Of course she's gained roughly 5-7 levels in that time, so it never quite gets easy, especially with Legendary difficulty. The game has a much more developed feel when my PC has a fair list of minor accomplishments across several holds, but any one of the companions would have a scoffing, "So what? That's nothing." retort if she were to recite them. All in all, it feels right when experience and character development are earned the hard way, and story inconsistencies fade almost entirely in importance when the stories can't even be pursued because the character can't realistically make that happen.

[zambkptkn]

I've read through this thread and appreciate all the information that can be found here.

 

I'm new to Lovers Lab, and haven't yet used any of its mods. (So far I've just been mapping out the effects, dependencies, and compatibility issues of the ones that sound interesting.) Up til now, I've mainly been doing this sort of build with only Nexus mods.

 

My build is positively light compared to some listed here.

 

Low carry weight is the main method I've been using for ensuring a 'weak' character.

- Console Command - Set CarryWeight to 50.

- SkyTweak - Set so CarryWeight doesn't increase with level

 

I disable Fast Travel, but leave the default carriages available. Fast Travel between major cities isn't something I feel a need to prevent, it is fast travel to and from remote areas that needs o be prevented.

 

For skill advancement, I've lately been starting at zero in almost everything and going with trainer-only advancement.

 

I also use SkyTweak to lower the max sale value of items and increase training costs for Expert and Master trainers. While I always have to rebalance this when I have a significant change in mod loadout, it is usually sufficient for preventing Gold Glut for the early and mid-parts of the game. (Late game Gold Glut is much more difficult to deal with.)

 

Recently, I've added "Investment Price Config". Using this I set the city home prices to max to make them unaffordable. (I also max out the price of horses as well.) I find having a home in a major city to be too much of an advantage. If my character gets one of these, the difficulty lessens dramatically.   Hearthfire home are much less of a problem, because just travelling to and from them opens you up to frequent bandit attacks. (I do max out he cost of adding a carriage to the Hearthfire home.)

 

I have run into a few problems I still haven't solved to my satisfaction.

 

---Fortify Carry Weight Items - When my character finally gets decent at Enchanting, the obvious thing to do is create multiple items to increase Carry Weight. I need a way to deal with this. (This forum came up while I was looking to find a mod that introduced a significant chance of getting robbed/stripped of your equipment.)

 

---Public Crafting Stations - I'd like a mod that kept the player from easily using someone else's crafting stations. Maybe a MCM-configurable rental fee, with unauthorized use being a crime. If the character has to leave the cities and go to some remote location to do their crafting, this hobbles a major possibility of Gold Glut. Particularly when mixed with restricted Carry Weight. (FMEA looks like it might answer this issue with alchemy and enchanting. I'm going to try it soon and see if it can be set to the results I desire. Still need something for smithing though.)

 

---[QUEST] Tag Abuse - Restricting Carry Weight is great, but what happens when your character gets a weightless (and useful) quest item that they can hang onto seemingly forever?  Actually, this hasn't been a huge problem, but it has cropped up as an annoyance a couple of times.

 

---Alchemy Abuse - One I see mentioned a lot in the forums. It hasn't been that big of a deal for me yet, but it is steadily getting worse with each restart. For me, the vanilla alchemy system works well enough - unless the player has outside knowledge of the various ingredients effects. Without outside knowledge, just working out the various effects and combinations keeps alchemy decently limited until you reach past the mid-game and get well into the late-game.  Yet even if I don't consult outside references, just my own memory of previous playthroughs gives my character an immediate boost in alchemy that seriously inflates the earning potential of a newbie alchemist. A boost that gets ever-bigger with every playthrough.

 

What I'd really like here is a mod that (somewhat intelligently) randomized the effects of the various alchemy ingredients, so that the player would need to discover the profitable combinations anew each time they started a new game.

 

---Light Armor - My low Carry Weight heavily discourages the use of heavy armor, but light armor is an issue I've never sufficiently solved. I have mixed feelings about it, as it does come in handy at times when I need extra protection, but I don't want my character to be able to wear it regularly and depend on it. I need to work out some way to introduce added difficulty to its use, while not completely ruining it as an option.

 

 

 

 

Still, its been fun reading about other people's mod loadouts and settings. Very informative. Lots of interesting tricks and mods I never even thought of.

 

Now I just need to work out which ones I want to add.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sweforce]

There is a mod for Morrowind that turns Jiub into the Nerevarine. Jiub can be find partying at various inns. This mod sets the player characters arrival at after the events of the base game and removes some quest, especially the main quest since Jiub are supposed to be the one that did that. Something similar could be used for Skyrim perhaps? Some followers can (and are) capable to lead (Vilja does from time to time).

[karlpaws]

10 hours ago, SkyAddiction said:

 

Continuity and coherence are clearly more important to you, which is of course fine. It just doesn't really matter to me since my PC can't even approach High Hrothgar until she's cleared most of the really easy locations in about three holds anyway. The bears/trolls/whatever along the path would just murder her even with a follower.

Not sure what you're refering to with the first part, but it sounds like your character's experience would be very much different from what Ulfric's was when he shouted down the walls at Markarth.  In your game I wonder how Klimmek manages to get up the mountain.

 

 

 

@zambkptkn I broke your post apart so I could respond to the bits I think I can help with...

 

6 hours ago, zambkptkn said:

---Fortify Carry Weight Items - When my character finally gets decent at Enchanting, the obvious thing to do is create multiple items to increase Carry Weight. I need a way to deal with this. (This forum came up while I was looking to find a mod that introduced a significant chance of getting robbed/stripped of your equipment.)

 

This might go with the weightless quest items, but some times the simplest response is to just roleplay it.  Don't use those enchants or limit it to just one item. If you wanted, you could create (or edit some armor merge ESP if you have one) and change which item times the Carry Weight enchant works on (at least I think I remember doing that, before I got a mod that lets me do the inverse: applying all enchants to all items). 

 

6 hours ago, zambkptkn said:

---Public Crafting Stations - I'd like a mod that kept the player from easily using someone else's crafting stations. Maybe a MCM-configurable rental fee, with unauthorized use being a crime.

 

There is such a mod, I just cannot remember the name of it right now. Picking crops, using crafting stations and a few other things are made illegal. There was another mod that I think focused on smithing but might have worked for enchanting too - you could pay the smith to improve your armor or weapons.

 

6 hours ago, zambkptkn said:

---[QUEST] Tag Abuse - Restricting Carry Weight is great, but what happens when your character gets a weightless (and useful) quest item that they can hang onto seemingly forever?  Actually, this hasn't been a huge problem, but it has cropped up as an annoyance a couple of times.

 

Oddly there are some people that suggest using the Avenicci greatsword in the early levels since it is weightless and free.  Harrald in Riften also has a longsword you can fetch and use for a while, Alessandra's got a dagger. I think though that it won't be a problem since there are so very few items like that. Most quest items won't be usable. Finding this link it looks like those are the only weapons you're given, everything else you find and bring back.

 

6 hours ago, zambkptkn said:

---Alchemy Abuse - One I see mentioned a lot in the forums. It hasn't been that big of a deal for me yet, but it is steadily getting worse with each restart. For me, the vanilla alchemy system works well enough - unless the player has outside knowledge of the various ingredients effects. Without outside knowledge, just working out the various effects and combinations keeps alchemy decently limited until you reach past the mid-game and get well into the late-game.  Yet even if I don't consult outside references, just my own memory of previous playthroughs gives my character an immediate boost in alchemy that seriously inflates the earning potential of a newbie alchemist. A boost that gets ever-bigger with every playthrough.

 

What I'd really like here is a mod that (somewhat intelligently) randomized the effects of the various alchemy ingredients, so that the player would need to discover the profitable combinations anew each time they started a new game.

 

I suspect randomizing the effects of ingredients is impossible, as the items are fixed with those effects.  Similar to how random loot contains an enchanted version of a sword by including 20 some versions of the sword for one each enchantment type.  On the other hand, having to discover alchemy properties never made sense to me since you could just ASK what it does, or buy one of many recipes that list a pair of ingredients... or "A little wheat and blisterwort" as half a dozen people are quick to tell you.

 

What you could possibly do is change the values for alchemy price, magnitude, and scaling in SkyTweak like you did for the prices for everything.  I think the value of the potion directly influences the experience you get from making it (though you can turn that down too) so if you want to level more by trainers (if you aren't already) that's another way to do it skill by skill.

 

6 hours ago, zambkptkn said:

---Light Armor - My low Carry Weight heavily discourages the use of heavy armor, but light armor is an issue I've never sufficiently solved. I have mixed feelings about it, as it does come in handy at times when I need extra protection, but I don't want my character to be able to wear it regularly and depend on it. I need to work out some way to introduce added difficulty to its use, while not completely ruining it as an option.

 

This one I don't understand.  Do you mean you wear light armor and avoid heavy since it is... heavy or do you want to wear heavy, not cheat with the "heavy armor wears nothing while worn" perk and still have a weight limit?

 

Wearing armor does build up your strength and stamina and over time you will not find its weight a drawback, so that part of the perk is realistic.  You can tweak how much armor rating you get from your armor in SkyTweak as well so you could get less protection if you want to go that route (works for all though, can't limit light and not heavy).  At high enough levels, you can max out the vanilla armor rating formula with both light and heavy armor so just what you want as your limit might factor more than the armor rating or weight.

 

 

 

[orgs1n]

14 hours ago, sweforce said:

A dragonborn by nature are supposed to be the very opposite of this.

Indeed, but there might be a price to pay for such power. If you were jarl, with your province under attack by dragons, and you heard there's this person whose mere presence will cause a dragon to truly die when it's taken down... would you not try to control that person? And if she's not cooperative: lock her up, gag her to keep her from shouting, and drag her out of the prison whenever there's a dragon about. They'll soon learn to bother other provinces if their kin never come back from yours.

 

Hmm, maybe I should try a run like this. Run with insurmountable bounties in all the holds, bounty hunters on the chase, avoiding cities unless in disguise... Seems like a great "survival in the wild" scenario! *starts googling face mask and disguise mods*

[SkyAddiction]

2 hours ago, karlpaws said:

Not sure what you're refering to with the first part, but it sounds like your character's experience would be very much different from what Ulfric's was when he shouted down the walls at Markarth.  In your game I wonder how Klimmek manages to get up the mountain.

 

I meant that you're much more concerned with how your changes to the game world mesh with the game's story. You clearly prefer it be more seamlessly integrated than I do. e.g.: I'm not overly concerned with whether or not my PC is actually the dragonborn, where if you were to play a non-dragonborn PC, you'd clearly take steps to ensure your character can't ever do dragonborn things.

 

If I were writing Skyrim I'd take your position, but as I'm more focused on making a specific character type viable within the existing framework of the game, I'm far more concerned with function than storytelling. That might change as I continue to solidify the basic build I'm using, but right now it's all about making the system of mods I have work the way I want it to.

[sapho888]

I generally play now as Not the Dragonborn, mostly because it is easier for me to explain with the mods that are available.  I simply ignore the main quest line in the beginning.  If I want to actually become the dragonborn, then I head to Helgen.

 

However, I've always wanted some mods that let you roleplay more as a dragonborn slave.  In my head, I imagine some rogue dragon cult that views dragons merely as possessors of a immense power. There are always those in the world that want more power, regardless of the means required to obtain it.    They "worshiped" the dragons to get access to some of that power but aren't necessarily loyal to them.   Now they don't necessarily see the dragonborn as the foretold savior of mankind, but rather as a tool to channel the dragons' powers.  A tool whose specific purpose is to convert a slain dragon's essence into something that they can use.  Such a rare tool must be controlled and protected, of course, for it would be coveted by many...

 

And thus would start a game of cat and mouse where various NPC slaver factions would be trying to capture the dragonborn via various means.  

 

I even named the cult... they would be the Dragon's Reign/Rein.  ?

[zambkptkn]

 

Thanks for the responses, karlpaws. I'll look into some of your suggestions. I'm sure there's a number of mods I've missed that will help.

 

2 hours ago, karlpaws said:

This one I don't understand.  Do you mean you wear light armor and avoid heavy since it is... heavy or do you want to wear heavy, not cheat with the "heavy armor wears nothing while worn" perk and still have a weight limit?

 

Wearing armor does build up your strength and stamina and over time you will not find its weight a drawback, so that part of the perk is realistic.  You can tweak how much armor rating you get from your armor in SkyTweak as well so you could get less protection if you want to go that route (works for all though, can't limit light and not heavy).  At high enough levels, you can max out the vanilla armor rating formula with both light and heavy armor so just what you want as your limit might factor more than the armor rating or weight.

Yeah, I didn't make this too clear. Partly because my own feelings on it aren't that well thought-out.

 

Basically, my low Carry Weight makes the use of Heavy Armor difficult due to its weight. At least until you get the weightless perk. It's not impossible to wear, but it massively reduces the amount of loot you can take and still keep your armor. Increasing the Heavy Armor skill enough to get the weightless perk ends up very far down on the priority list.

 

However, Light Armor is still usable. A full set of Elven doesn't weigh all that much, so even with the carry restriction you can still usually carry all the gold, gems and potions you find and not have to abandon your armor. This presents a major incentive for my character to improve her Light Armor skill.

 

This gives me mixed feelings. On the one hand, it allows my character to still dungeon dive, so all that content is still available for play, yet I worry about it becoming too much of an advantage and making her too strong. So I'd like some sort of difficulty that adds some risk, but doesn't make Light Armor useless.

 

Like I said, I'm not too clear even in my own mind about exactly what it is that I actually want.

 

Maybe something like Naked Dungeons, where there's a significant chance of the armor being stripped from her? Maybe some sort of crime mod where she can't let a guard see her wearing/carrying armor and has to stash it somewhere whenever she goes into town? I don't really know myself exactly what I want here.

 

That's one reason I'm reading these forums. To get ideas of things I might try.

 

 

[karlpaws]

55 minutes ago, SkyAddiction said:

I meant that you're much more concerned with how your changes to the game world mesh with the game's story. You clearly prefer it be more seamlessly integrated than I do. e.g.: I'm not overly concerned with whether or not my PC is actually the dragonborn, where if you were to play a non-dragonborn PC, you'd clearly take steps to ensure your character can't ever do dragonborn things.

Not really. I'm mostly speaking from a "you can" POV versus a "should" or anything like that. I use Unbound to not deal with dragons, but I can always turn them on if I'd want to.

 

I haven't done a real full playthrough in a while.. have some problem causing a CTD at seemingly random times, or it will just lock up entirely.

[karlpaws]

13 minutes ago, zambkptkn said:

Basically, my low Carry Weight makes the use of Heavy Armor difficult due to its weight. At least until you get the weightless perk. It's not impossible to wear, but it massively reduces the amount of loot you can take and still keep your armor. Increasing the Heavy Armor skill enough to get the weightless perk ends up very far down on the priority list.

 

However, Light Armor is still usable. A full set of Elven doesn't weigh all that much, so even with the carry restriction you can still usually carry all the gold, gems and potions you find and not have to abandon your armor. This presents a major incentive for my character to improve her Light Armor skill.

 

This gives me mixed feelings. On the one hand, it allows my character to still dungeon dive, so all that content is still available for play, yet I worry about it becoming too much of an advantage and making her too strong. So I'd like some sort of difficulty that adds some risk, but doesn't make Light Armor useless.

I suspect you need to figure out what you want before you can figure out how to fix it, but perhaps an armor degradation mod would help. Not having used them I don't know how customizable any of them are but perhaps having a better chance to repair one type vs the other having more durability would give you the options you want.  Another option might be a "medium armor" mod... or a little work with the CK or TESVEdit... some armors with lower armor and weight but still classed as heavy similar to the 3 kinds of elven armor or the "medium" imperial leather which is a heavier, stronger light armor variant.

13 minutes ago, zambkptkn said:

Maybe some sort of crime mod where she can't let a guard see her wearing/carrying armor and has to stash it somewhere whenever she goes into town? I don't really know myself exactly what I want here.

You might want to look at SL Adventures.  It does a lot of what you're talking about I think.  Not exactly sure why I didn't think of it before.

[karlpaws]

one other somewhat silly I've had... if horses are too expensive or undesirable for some reason, why can't I buy/build/steal a hand card/wheelbarrow? They have some havok and animation for the wheel turning. Could probably pile 200 units of weight on one and only drop speed to 80% perhaps.

[xboronx]

32 minutes ago, sapho888 said:

I generally play now as Not the Dragonborn, mostly because it is easier for me to explain with the mods that are available.  I simply ignore the main quest line in the beginning.  If I want to actually become the dragonborn, then I head to Helgen.

 

However, I've always wanted some mods that let you roleplay more as a dragonborn slave.  In my head, I imagine some rogue dragon cult that views dragons merely as possessors of a immense power. There are always those in the world that want more power, regardless of the means required to obtain it.    They "worshiped" the dragons to get access to some of that power but aren't necessarily loyal to them.   Now they don't necessarily see the dragonborn as the foretold savior of mankind, but rather as a tool to channel the dragons' powers.  A tool whose specific purpose is to convert a slain dragon's essence into something that they can use.  Such a rare tool must be controlled and protected, of course, for it would be coveted by many...

 

And thus would start a game of cat and mouse where various NPC slaver factions would be trying to capture the dragonborn via various means.  

 

I even named the cult... they would be the Dragon's Reign/Rein.  ?

Sounds great. Reading this somehow reminds me on the Batman vs. Superman movie. You might have various dragon slave cults, one of them being a fantasy inspired version of Lex Luthor corp..

 

I personally would also like a Dragon Slave scenario. Why shouldn't a powerful Dragon be confident enough that he can easily handle the Dragonborn and keep her as a pet for entertainment? He can always kill her later when he gets bored but for a while it would be entertaining. A fun ritual might be that young dragons have to prove that they have become mature by defeating and raping the dragonborn? This would be a nice spectacle for the older dragons watching too. Also there could be more dragon borns and the dragons enjoy "funny perverted" gladiator games between dragonborns and various monters and sometimes join the matches themselves.

 

 

[SkyAddiction]

8 minutes ago, zambkptkn said:

 

Spoiler

 

Thanks for the responses, karlpaws. I'll look into some of your suggestions. I'm sure there's a number of mods I've missed that will help.

 

Yeah, I didn't make this too clear. Partly because my own feelings on it aren't that well thought-out.

 

Basically, my low Carry Weight makes the use of Heavy Armor difficult due to its weight. At least until you get the weightless perk. It's not impossible to wear, but it massively reduces the amount of loot you can take and still keep your armor. Increasing the Heavy Armor skill enough to get the weightless perk ends up very far down on the priority list.

 

However, Light Armor is still usable. A full set of Elven doesn't weigh all that much, so even with the carry restriction you can still usually carry all the gold, gems and potions you find and not have to abandon your armor. This presents a major incentive for my character to improve her Light Armor skill.

 

This gives me mixed feelings. On the one hand, it allows my character to still dungeon dive, so all that content is still available for play, yet I worry about it becoming too much of an advantage and making her too strong. So I'd like some sort of difficulty that adds some risk, but doesn't make Light Armor useless.

 

Like I said, I'm not too clear even in my own mind about exactly what it is that I actually want.

 

Maybe something like Naked Dungeons, where there's a significant chance of the armor being stripped from her? Maybe some sort of crime mod where she can't let a guard see her wearing/carrying armor and has to stash it somewhere whenever she goes into town? I don't really know myself exactly what I want here.

 

That's one reason I'm reading these forums. To get ideas of things I might try.

 

 

 

 

I generally found low carry weight to be more trouble than it's worth. In practice, it essentially forces you to make multiple trips between the location you just cleared and the nearest merchant. It's eating time and causing delay, not impeding your ability to sell and acquire wealth. A mod like iNeed, RND, etc. can do that far more effectively by simply forcing you to sleep.

 

Some things that might help tune your build:

Scarcity - You'll be surprised by how much gold this removes from the world, both in actual coin and in items, particularly with the more punishing .esps that come with the mod.

 

Instead of making houses impossible to acquire, you can make them another money sink with either Simple Taxes or Taxes of the Nine Holds. Simple taxes has the advantage of being, well... simple. It also allows you to make followers and horses money sinks as well.

 

Some form of death alternative. Outside this community, there's really only Death Alternative - Your Money or Your Life (DAYMOYL). Most of the competing mods here involve some degree of non-consensual sex, though I'm fairly certain Sexlab Defeat can actually be configured as a simple robbery mod if you so choose. I'd go with that over DAYMOYL because the latter introduces all sorts of weird, hard-to-track bugs. The basic idea is to remove the free, no-consequence reload after losing a fight and instead lose all your money and stuff. If you can get your combat difficult enough that winning isn't guaranteed, you'll find it's often better to run away if you have a chance of losing, and many locations will make for extremely imprudent targets until you improve your character.

 

Since you already use SkyTweak, these will help:

Vendors tab:

Max Sell Price Factor. Tank it, even as low as 0.1-0.2 - it makes sense if you consider that all merchants already have a fairly well established supply chain. Why should they buy at market value from you when they have a trusted supplier?

fBarterMin/Max. Cut these way, way, down - speech has an enormous impact on prices.

Experience Tab:

Experience Rate - I have most of these set to roughly 1% of vanilla values. From what you've said about your build, you probably do something similar anyway. Don't set them to 0, because the odd skill point gain helps smooth the general difficulty curve. Do however, set Alchemy, Speech, and Enchanting to 0.01. They increase ridiculously fast no matter what.

Skill Level Cost Power - a little goes a long way here, but increasing it greatly slows down leveling, which makes progression up the leveled list of enemies feel much more challenging. Also, because you level slower, perks become extremely valuable.

[SkyAddiction]

49 minutes ago, karlpaws said:

Not really. I'm mostly speaking from a "you can" POV versus a "should" or anything like that. I use Unbound to not deal with dragons, but I can always turn them on if I'd want to.

 

I haven't done a real full playthrough in a while.. have some problem causing a CTD at seemingly random times, or it will just lock up entirely.

 

Yeah, it was more mutual musings than suggestions. I still filed it away somewhere in my addled brain in the "worth remembering" cabinet.

 

Regarding random CTDs and lock-ups, I had the same problem. Turns out it was ENB + mod load + HDT PE. I didn't want to sacrifice anything I had, so I switched to SMP and that lessened the load on the game enough to completely eliminate the problem.

 

24 minutes ago, karlpaws said:

one other somewhat silly I've had... if horses are too expensive or undesirable for some reason, why can't I buy/build/steal a hand card/wheelbarrow? They have some havok and animation for the wheel turning. Could probably pile 200 units of weight on one and only drop speed to 80% perhaps.

 

I... goddamn... now I want that! Knowing me I'd probably never use it, but I like the idea. 

[sapho888]

15 hours ago, xboronx said:

Sounds great. Reading this somehow reminds me on the Batman vs. Superman movie. You might have various dragon slave cults, one of them being a fantasy inspired version of Lex Luthor corp..

 

I personally would also like a Dragon Slave scenario. Why shouldn't a powerful Dragon be confident enough that he can easily handle the Dragonborn and keep her as a pet for entertainment? He can always kill her later when he gets bored but for a while it would be entertaining. A fun ritual might be that young dragons have to prove that they have become mature by defeating and raping the dragonborn? This would be a nice spectacle for the older dragons watching too. Also there could be more dragon borns and the dragons enjoy "funny perverted" gladiator games between dragonborns and various monters and sometimes join the matches themselves.

 

 

At the risk of turning this into a DC vs Marvel thread... why must you insult my idea by comparing it to BvS?   You take that back!!!  ?

 

(I'm kidding... kinda)

[sapho888]

14 hours ago, SkyAddiction said:

 

I generally found low carry weight to be more trouble than it's worth. In practice, it essentially forces you to make multiple trips between the location you just cleared and the nearest merchant. It's eating time and causing delay, not impeding your ability to sell and acquire wealth. A mod like iNeed, RND, etc. can do that far more effectively by simply forcing you to sleep.

 

Some things that might help tune your build:

Scarcity - You'll be surprised by how much gold this removes from the world, both in actual coin and in items, particularly with the more punishing .esps that come with the mod.

 

Instead of making houses impossible to acquire, you can make them another money sink with either Simple Taxes or Taxes of the Nine Holds. Simple taxes has the advantage of being, well... simple. It also allows you to make followers and horses money sinks as well.

 

I use low carry weight because it forces me to choose whether making multiple trips is worth it.   Maybe if the battle is right outside a town, I will spend the time to cart items back and forth to sell but if it is a dungeon, I will probably just pick the most expensive/ efficient set of items to carry.  I don't use fast travel and rarely use horses so traveling can be a big deal... especially with RND and Frostfall active.

[xboronx]

2 hours ago, sapho888 said:

At the risk of turning this into a DC vs Marvel thread... why must you insult my idea by comparing it to BvS?   You take that back!!!  ?

 

(I'm kidding... kinda)

I have a weakness for almost any of those superhero movies, no matter if it is DC, Marvel, Transformers or whatever else ?. Usually i like the villains more though than the heros :D.

 

Sorry for defiling your idea nontheless

[sweforce]

21 hours ago, orgs1n said:

Indeed, but there might be a price to pay for such power. If you were jarl, with your province under attack by dragons, and you heard there's this person whose mere presence will cause a dragon to truly die when it's taken down... would you not try to control that person? And if she's not cooperative: lock her up, gag her to keep her from shouting, and drag her out of the prison whenever there's a dragon about. They'll soon learn to bother other provinces if their kin never come back from yours.

 

Hmm, maybe I should try a run like this. Run with insurmountable bounties in all the holds, bounty hunters on the chase, avoiding cities unless in disguise... Seems like a great "survival in the wild" scenario! *starts googling face mask and disguise mods*

You had been to the tower to beg the guards there for some scraps of food, a little coin and you had to provide services for them to get it. Then a dragon came and assaulted the tower! Several of the guards got killed but apparently someone managed to make it back to Whiterun to call for help. Help came in the form of a dunmer lady of war, Ireleth, the Jarls own Housecarl and some reinforcements under her command. They slew the rampaging dragon and finally you dared to move from the crevice you been hiding in during the battle. You approached the dragons corpse in awe. Then something happened, the dragons flesh disintegrated and something from int where absorbed into your body. This impressed the guards that talked about something called a "dragonborn", they said you where one! Ireleth where sceptical at first but pointed at the dragons remain and menetioned that there had been dragon attacks at some other places, dragons that later came back to life again! You as a dragonborn could prevent such resurrections. Moments later you found yourself in Whiterun's dungeon, not accused of anything but and asset to keep under lock and key. Then this warrior woman, Lydia, another one of the Jarl's housecarlscame to visit you and she talked about that she was oathsworn to carry her masters burdens and now, you would be that burden. Many holds where desperate for a solution to their dragon problem and for a fee, wealthy people could hire you to be there when they put them down. Lydia would function as your bodyguard, and jailer. You, a simple asset, a tool for dragonslaying, and a slave... 

[xboronx]

I haven't used mods which alter Skyrim's equipment much so far, but i have gotten a new thought recently:

 

The base damage between using a iron sword vs. a dragon sword only roughly doubles, and for two handed weapons it's even less. I haven't tried min/maxing smithing/enchanting skills, but reading on uesp if you use everything like potions and enchanted gear crazy boni seem to be achieveable.

During my playing though it didn't seem to matter too much if i just use a iron sword or better weapons.

 

I wonder if it would make sense to try a rebalance where the best weapons are much more powerful, like lets say every better material gives +50% damage, that would mean a dragon sword would make 1,5^10 damage of an ironsword, so roughly 400 base damage. Higher level enemies would need more hp for such a base rebalance too of course, and prices for the better items increased too.

 

But would such an approach be viable? I think this way you would be forced more to get the rarer high tier gear and if you really lose your equipment this will have a big impact. Like when you lost your carefully trained army in Mount&Blade, this really had a huge impact and you had to carefully build back your army for quite a while training them with bandits and small enemy groups before after a long while you could again attempt to siege an enemy fort or similiar.

 

 

Are there good mods that try something like i described or is there a hardcoded Skyrim mechanic or some weakness in my theory so it's not worth a try?

[karlpaws]

1 hour ago, xboronx said:

The base damage between using a iron sword vs. a dragon sword only roughly doubles, and for two handed weapons it's even less.

 

I wonder if it would make sense to try a rebalance where the best weapons are much more powerful, like lets say every better material gives +50% damage, that would mean a dragon sword would make 1,5^10 damage of an ironsword, so roughly 400 base damage. Higher level enemies would need more hp for such a base rebalance too of course, and prices for the better items increased too.

Interesting idea and I suspect it would work but probably require editing the records of the items in question. I don't know if there is a way script wise to increase damage based on material type. Have to look at weapons... I know there is a box for silver types that lets them do more damage to the affected creature types and armor does have material type keywords for the armor matching material type perks and smithing (so weapons must too... hrm).

 

The perks that increase damage dealt just do a flat multiplier... I wonder if they could have extra conditionals added so that the Armsman perk for example instead of just increasing damage by 100% (so the iron sword goes from 7 to 14 damage, a daedric goes from 14 to 28 - an increase of 14 compared to the iron's 7, so a quintuple from unbonused start to skilled and equipped...) but if you added to the level 2 perk dwarven and elven increase 50% and iron and steel only 40%.. at level 5 perk iron and steel are still at 100% and ebony, glass, dragon and daedric could be 300-500%?

 

Another world wide edit that could matter would be more creature types being immune to non-special material types. The Nymph race mod recently introduced uses that kind of idea, making the PC and followers from the mod immune to iron and steel, but still taking damage from elven. Doing so over depending on weapon perks and increased health pools would balance better with mages, unless you increased the damage of the higher level spells and correspondingly reduced spell costs (which is another abused mechanic from enchanting) to keep mages viable.

[woodsman30]

So keeping with the OP post there is a simple solution I often use as I never start at level 1..  I start at level 30 or above but have level one stats to start make a even play field..... crappy weapons are no longer used by enemies ect... to do this get hit the ~ click your PC and type setlevel 1000,0,30,150 now you are level 30 as is every one else if for some reason you stats go up just change them much the same way hit ~ type setav health 100 now you have level one health do this for all stats now you have an under-powered PC who really needs help to get by. I do this so followers are more useful and required makes for a better play-though.

[afa]

Let me see if I can recall this correctly...

The difference in power between better than worse gear become more apparent when skill and perks are higher, because multiplication is involve.

However tempering bonuses are fairly linear because addition is involve.

Which lead to cases where at high skill and perk alone the % difference between different gear is the most apparent, but at high crafting the net difference is the same therefore % diff is way lower.

It's a little hard to explain.

[Storms of Superior]

On 1/31/2019 at 5:33 PM, sapho888 said:

I generally play now as Not the Dragonborn, mostly because it is easier for me to explain with the mods that are available.  I simply ignore the main quest line in the beginning.  If I want to actually become the dragonborn, then I head to Helgen.

 

However, I've always wanted some mods that let you roleplay more as a dragonborn slave.  In my head, I imagine some rogue dragon cult that views dragons merely as possessors of a immense power. There are always those in the world that want more power, regardless of the means required to obtain it.    They "worshiped" the dragons to get access to some of that power but aren't necessarily loyal to them.   Now they don't necessarily see the dragonborn as the foretold savior of mankind, but rather as a tool to channel the dragons' powers.  A tool whose specific purpose is to convert a slain dragon's essence into something that they can use.  Such a rare tool must be controlled and protected, of course, for it would be coveted by many...

 

And thus would start a game of cat and mouse where various NPC slaver factions would be trying to capture the dragonborn via various means.  

 

I even named the cult... they would be the Dragon's Reign/Rein.  ?

This is brilliant. I would enjoy having this premise replace the main quest in Skyrim, as if it could be an alternate version of Skyrim where you are necessarily the bad guy. Fuckin' eh right.

[Seijin8]

4 hours ago, Storms of Superior said:

This is brilliant. I would enjoy having this premise replace the main quest in Skyrim, as if it could be an alternate version of Skyrim where you are necessarily the bad guy. Fuckin' eh right.

More variety in the whole MQ would be awesome.  If only a complete replacement for the main quest were a simple mod to make.  It would be a tremendous amount of effort, and likely a compatibility nightmare.

 

EDIT: Shit, while we're fantasizing, Dawnguard and Dragonborn could essentially add those as new factions also vying for control.  Mix with Organic Factions to see which group can take over Skyrim using their Dragonborn pawn.

[Storms of Superior]

24 minutes ago, Seijin8 said:

More variety in the whole MQ would be awesome.  If only a complete replacement for the main quest were a simple mod to make.  It would be a tremendous amount of effort, and likely a compatibility nightmare.

 

EDIT: Shit, while we're fantasizing, Dawnguard and Dragonborn could essentially add those as new factions also vying for control.  Mix with Organic Factions to see which group can take over Skyrim using their Dragonborn pawn.

I agree with all of it.